The recent series of drone sightings around Gatwick Airport’s runway plunged it into utter chaos, causing the Airport’s biggest disruption since the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud of 2010. The disruptions forced Britain’s second-largest airport into a virtual standstill, shutting three times in a week, causing hundreds of flights to be cancelled and the pre-Christmas holiday plans of an estimated 150,000 passengers to be disrupted. Airport authorities feared drones could potentially strike passenger planes with catastrophic consequences (as any mid-air collision with an object is dangerous to aircraft), including financial losses estimated to run into the order of millions of pounds.

Police were “actively investigating” 67 reports of drone sightings between December 19 and December 21 from members of the public, passengers, police officers and airport staff, although “it was always a possibility that there may not have been any genuine drone activity in the first place.” Police and military specialists were deployed to search for those behind the drones, although authorities do not believe that the incidents were linked to terrorism or any foreign power.[1]

The fact that the disruption was sustained for a long period however points to a deliberate act. However, as we reflect on these types of adverse impact of drones on flight paths, little do we take our minds to the disastrous impact destructive drones are being increasingly—and intentionally—used for, remotely by the West, particularly the US in pursuance of their militarist adventures.

What are drones?

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are high-technology devices that are constantly evolving thanks to a burgeoning community of enthusiastic technologists. Originally, drone referred to an unmanned aircraft pre-programmed with a flight plan, in which the aircraft would fly in either a straight line or round in circles until the engine would run low on fuel, and then the drone would land. More recently, “drone” has evolved into a catch-all term including any unmanned robot either pre-programmed or remotely controlled. This includes robots designed for water, land, and air use.

There are many types of uses for aerial drones. Whether military or commercial, the applications are similar in nature. The types of drones available will be endless, as technology progresses. However, the current uses for drones are:

Attack drones — Used only by the military, these drones are equipped with lethal weapons;

Crowd control drones — Equipped with non-lethal weapons such as tear gas or sound cannons;

Delivery drones — Originally developed for the military to deliver goods to ground troops;

Monitoring drones — Equipped with both standard and infrared cameras as well as sensitive weather instrumentation; and

Photography/videography drones — These drones are becoming more popular in creative arts.

War of Terror

Drones have arguably been part of warfare since the 19th century,[2] with unmanned technology advancing in the interwar period. By the late 1950s however the US and others found they could use unmanned, remotely piloted aircraft as spy planes with drones being still only a niche technology during the Cold War. The genesis of the drones orbiting today’s battlefields came in key technological leaps.

The US’ drones, which started life as spy planes, were augmented to become assassination weapons. And they have been used in at least seven countries to fulfil exactly those roles, throughout Washington’s ongoing so-called ‘War on Terror’. They have been reportedly hoovering up information, feeding the military’s insatiable demand for “battlefield” intelligence (meaning the whole world now in practice), and finding and killing “terrorists and insurgents”. As if those labels were not subjective enough, it should be noted that Human Rights group Reprieve analysed data from drone strikes in a report in 2014 highlighting a 28:1 civilian to “target” ratio.[3]

“Drone strikes have been sold to the American public on the claim that they’re ‘precise’. But they are only as precise as the intelligence that feeds them. There is nothing precise about intelligence that results in the deaths of 28 unknown people, including women and children, for every ‘bad guy’ the US goes after.” Jennifer Gibson, Reprieve.

Advocates have emphasised the drones’ crucial role in providing intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, in strengthening the legal armature of targeting, and in conducting precision-strikes while critics claim that their use reduces late modern war to a video game in which killing becomes casual. The use of drones in armed conflicts has therefore increased significantly in recent years, raising humanitarian, legal and other concerns.

Barack O’Bomber

The US drone killing programme massively expanded under President Barack Obama. Responding to evolving militant threats and the greater availability of remote piloting technology, Obama ordered ten times more “counter-terror” strikes than his predecessor George W Bush over the course of his term. Thousands of strikes have been carried out in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, carried out by the highly secretive Central Intelligence Agency and Joint Special Operations Command at the Pentagon.

It has also killed thousands of civilians, according to data collected by countless journalists and rights groups—a reality which experts have warned from day one has a greater “radicalising” effect than any other, particularly the religious beliefs of those “terrorists and insurgents” they claim to be trying to wipe out from the sky. Human rights organisations have lambasted the targeted killing programme for its “clear violations of international humanitarian law.”[4] Vltchek and Chomsky in their book refer to drones as the embodiment of a new extreme reached in US foreign policy.[5]

In fact, four former US air force service members, with more than 20 years of experience between them operating military drones, wrote an open letter to Obama warning that ‘the program of targeted killings by unmanned aircraft has become a major driving force for Isis and other terrorist groups’ and argued that “the killing of innocent civilians in drone airstrikes has acted as one of the most “devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilisation around the world”.[6] More worrying has been that, in expanding US drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan, Trump has “shredded” even the ‘Obama-era safeguards’ to minimising the risk of civilian casualties.

A new low set for the world

Although most of the drone strikes are American, the US has long lost its monopoly of this very 21st-century form of warfare (the first strike was carried out in 2001). So far, seven countries have used armed drones in combat operations: the US, Israel, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria – and the UK. Britain’s role in drone warfare is marginal when compared with that of the US. But UK drone use is still significant and a matter of indisputable public interest.

According to Drone Wars UK, more than 1,200 UK missions have been launched in Iraq and Syria in the past 18 months, of which around 360 have released weapons, overwhelmingly in Iraq.[7] The Bureau of Investigative Journalism claimed that of the 416 to 959 civilians killed by drones in Pakistan between 2004 and 2014, 168 to 204 were children. Furthermore, between 2002 and 2014 in Yemen, drones killed at least 64 to 83 civilians with a possible 26 to 68 additional deaths unaccounted for.

Additionally, those in the territories where drones operate live in habitual fear. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) possesses a wide array of systems, some developed in association with the Pentagon. Residents in the occupied Palestinian territories are frightened by potential Israeli strikes while those living in Pakistan experience perpetual terror from the constant hovering of drones, a reminder of enemies thousands of miles away. Within Yemen, the relentless buzzing above has caused thousands of citizens to develop psychological disorders—such as post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety—even inducing miscarriages in some pregnant women.[8]

Removing the combatant from the battlefield

Drones act as a new way of killing within modern conflict and may have lowered the threshold to the use of lethal force, posing both moral and legal dilemmas. Drones have also dehumanised war and enabled more lethal force than ever before by removing the combatant from the battlefield. As we continue to make war “less human, we may also be making it less humane.”[9]

Over nearly a decade, drone-attack frequency and death rates have increased dramatically. Rather than calming the subjected regions through the precise elimination of terrorist leaders, however, the accelerating “counterterror” programmes have compounded violence and instability. Judicious use of technology to enhance or replace human judgment is a prerequisite.

Drone warfare walks a fine line between legal uses of force and extrajudicial killings. In order to protect and allow for the enjoyment of human beings’ rights, states must update their understandings of their human rights obligations under international law. Furthermore, this must be reinforced through strict accountability measures laid down by the UN.

There is an ongoing need to assess the use of drone strikes in all situations to ensure that the technology is being used in accordance with international law as it actually exists, not as it is interpreted to be, where such interpretations undermine the object and purpose of the law.

There could be rays of light for us in the UK considering the important 2016 report by parliament’s joint human rights committee, with the “rightly forbidding title”,[10]“The government’s policy on the use of drones for targeted killing”,[11] which made a powerful legal and political case for a much more honest approach to the proper limits of this form of military action.

Whether our governments will pay attention to actual justice and security instead of following the profit-led military industrial complex that strives from prolonged conflict and warfare, is a different story altogether. However, next time we hear people—including ourselves—complaining about how a drone ruined their holiday, let us take that as a catalyst to help create awareness and push back against those using drones to ruin lives and destabilise entire regions purportedly in our name.

]]>https://www.islam21c.com/opinion/do-we-care-about-drones-now/feed/039890Malala: Dinner list. Everyone else: Kill list.https://www.islam21c.com/politics/malala-dinner-list-everyone-else-kill-list/
https://www.islam21c.com/politics/malala-dinner-list-everyone-else-kill-list/#commentsSun, 12 Oct 2014 13:08:03 +0000http://www.islam21c.com/?p=13972If only she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize “Maezol Khan was a bright one” sighed the family of Chugtais ~ If only he could have his disfigured figure re-figured Too late for young Luqman, those deadly strikes the joystick triggered ~ If only she could fly to New York and hold Ban Ki Moon’s hand But young Ayesha lies deep beneath the rubble in Malakand ~ ...

More than 2,400 people have died in Obama’s illegal drone war[1]. In Pakistan alone, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that between 416 and 951 civilians have been killed, including 168 to 200 children[2]. The names of the children used in this poem are real victims; here a complete list of all the innocent children who have lost their lives in Obama’s illegal drone war[3]. Yet it is apparent Taliban target Malala Yousafzai who continues to grab all the headlines.

]]>https://www.islam21c.com/politics/malala-dinner-list-everyone-else-kill-list/feed/213972Looking at Pakistan’s Challenges – Does Turbulence Lie ahead?https://www.islam21c.com/politics/10222-looking-at-pakistans-challenges-does-turbulence-lie-ahead/
https://www.islam21c.com/politics/10222-looking-at-pakistans-challenges-does-turbulence-lie-ahead/#respondTue, 02 Jul 2013 23:39:42 +0000http://islam21c.com/jarida/?p=6848The 11th of May was a milestone in Pakistan’s 66-year political history, with the first ever handing over of power from one democratically elected government to another. Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League was voted into Office for a third time in his 30-year political career. This proved to be an astounding anti-climax for ...

The 11th of May was a milestone in Pakistan’s 66-year political history, with the first ever handing over of power from one democratically elected government to another. Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League was voted into Office for a third time in his 30-year political career. This proved to be an astounding anti-climax for millions (myself included) who were anxiously waiting for the ‘tsunami of change’ promised by Imran Khan and his revolutionist Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (Movement for Justice) Party. However, the risk-averse electorate instead chose to re-instate an experienced head in Nawaz Sharif, and have quite generously entrusted him with the seat at the helm despite the widespread allegations of corruption associated with his last two terms.1 Only time will tell whether this move was wise, or otherwise just a regurgitation of the same failed decisions that the nation has historically made with respect to its leadership choices.

At present, optimism is high among the masses that they have elected the right man for the job. The clear majority awarded to him through a record 60% voter turnout signifies their trust in Sharif’s ability to turn the tide. However as the ephemeral euphoria of victory subsides, the new rulers will have to face up to the challenges that they are expected to resolve. Crippling issues are impacting so many facets of Pakistan’s existence with the bulk of the blame being levelled at religious influences. The nation now finds itself at the point where it is embroiled in a battle to safeguard its religious conservative identity against the new-found calls for secularisation of society, which is being touted as the only possible solution to its problems…

To put it simply, it is no over-statement to suggest that Pakistan is at one of its lowest points in its 66-year history. Battered and bruised on so many fronts, it continues to survive miraculously under tremendous strain from every direction. The incompetence of the outgoing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government is demonstrated through the conditions that they are bequeathing to Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N. The economy paints a bleak picture to say the least. Unemployment is set to enter a record by hitting double-digits over the next year1 (unofficial figures are likely worse). Soaring inflation and lack of earning opportunities have pushed more than 60% of the population below the poverty line.2 Many have no access to clean drinking water, and cannot afford everyday basics like food and housing. As a result an increasing number of poverty-stricken people are resorting to the unthinkable, e.g. suicide, or even the selling/dumping of their children.3

Prospects for improvement are nowhere in sight. The ailing budget goes towards servicing the multi billion dollars of annual foreign debt, and the remainder is channelled to fund the non-negotiable needs of the military. This leaves little or nothing to put towards domestic economic needs which provide for a population in excess of 180 million. To make matters worse, insufficient energy supplies are killing off the industry, with many rural areas only receiving up to four hours of electricity a day. The government coffers are almost empty, which is no surprise considering the heavy dependence on foreign aid (mainly swallowed up through corruption). With registered tax payers equating to an unacceptable 1% of the population, and corruption rife within the system,4 financial self-sufficiency for Pakistan seems a distant dream. Hence the rulers repeatedly find themselves knocking on the door of the US or IMF, complete with begging bowl in hand, pleading for more assistance to keep afloat in exchange for the nations fast-diminishing dignity. While Nawaz Sharif has always been seen as the pro-business, economically savvy option amongst all his adversaries, he will be pulling off nothing short of a miracle if he manages to turn the economy around during this five-year term.

Perhaps the most significant challenge that Nawaz Sharif will have to confront as the new Head of State is that of domestic terrorism in Pakistan and the local as well as foreign efforts to counter this threat. Dealing with the problem is a territory unfamiliar to the seasoned politician since his last two terms were largely free from this predicament. The actions of the previous governments have only exacerbated the issue, with considerable mishandling, leading to aggravation and disillusionment not only among the groups in question, but the nation in general. Sharif’s proposed solution is to engage in dialogue – he is willing to speak to the Pakistani Taliban, and other similar organisations to hear out their grievances.5 This tact has not previously been employed by any government. However it will certainly not go down well with Pakistan’s so-called Western allies who have pumped billions of dollars into the country to eradicate these groups. Over the last decade, the US administration has virtually been given free access to Pakistan’s soil by successive governments in exchange for considerable financial assistance – a move largely perceived to be a breach of its sovereignty. US-led Drone attacks on alleged terrorist targets have littered the northern parts of Pakistan, yet achieved virtually nothing apart from pointless destruction and considerable loss of innocent life.6 As a consequence, anti-US sentiment has grown amongst the masses, and Sharif has promised a tough stance towards revoking permission for these Drone strikes.7 He has previously stood up to the US in 1997, when he equipped Pakistan with nuclear weapons despite warnings from the then administration of Bill Clinton to retract.8 However, the difference now is that Pakistan has even less capacity to withstand the financial pressures that the consequential economic sanctions will impose than it did back in ‘97. Hence this will prove another significant test of his diplomatic prowess, and commitment towards doing that which is right for the nation in the face of international pressure.

As if the above complications were not enough to deal with for the government in-waiting, it does not stop here. They will have to address another intangible, yet significant element bubbling under the surface of society, which is the emergence of secular ideology in Pakistan. The promotion of secularism has been endorsed by successive governments over the last ten years. The mindset was subtly introduced to begin with by General Parvez Musharraf through his call to adopt ‘enlightened moderation’ as the way forward for Muslims.9 This progressed over time into an attempt to completely separate faith and State, both in the constitution and judiciary. The subsequent PPP government has upheld this approach and pulled in a similar direction to its predecessor. Hence liberals and secular reformists have been given a robust platform and voice. While the demographic of the liberalists is currently restricted to the minority ‘elite’ classes,10 it would not take long for it to spread among other sections of society. Examples of recent issues, such as the call to revise Pakistan’s Shariah-based blasphemy law,11 have been given international coverage, and furthered liberalist claims for large-scale suppression of religious influence on society and State. The subliminal drip-feeding of the media is also supporting this reformist agenda. Heavily influenced by ideas from the West and across the Indian border, a majority of TV channels and English press are pushing out the secularist discourse in the name of progress and modernity. Hence in light of this current ideological movement, Nawaz Sharif will have to choose whether he is with the secularists or against them – and if his previous two terms in office are anything to go by, then he almost certainly will not be supporting their cause. The PML-N has always been a centre-right leaning party with a conservative agenda.12 This suggests that he will not be up for playing ball with the liberals. But the question is whether he would tactfully be able to put the genie back into the bottle now that it has escaped. What would help is if the lobby awakens to the fact that the Western secular model is not a universal ‘one-fits-all’ solution. In a country where the Muslim majority makes up 97% of the population,13 secularism cannot be superimposed as an all-encompassing remedy, rather it is not welcome and neither are the masses calling for it. Current abhorrent events from across the Bangladeshi border should be a lesson enough for anyone in doubt that the imposition of this ideology would result in social disaster. In an age where prominent secular Muslim countries like Turkey are now looking to revert back to conservatism,14 Pakistan should not be allowed to go the other way. Liberalists malign Islam based upon the misguided actions of a minority of religious extremists who use violence against the innocent. They wrongly draw strong parallels between the failings of the State, and its religious affiliations. This rhetoric is nothing but targeted scaremongering. Pakistan finds itself in its current predicament due to a plethora of underlying factors. From the corrupt politicians who have queued up to usurp the countries resources, to the constant fending-off of belligerent neighbouring states; from the disproportionate wealth gap between the rich and poor widened by a capitalist economy, to the dour economic outlook and lack of opportunity, everything has played its part. Hence the claims of the secularists which point to religion being the catalyst for failure are baseless. Instead of expending their energy in vilifying puritan Islam and posing it as a threat, they should endeavour to educate themselves with regard to what it represents and the solutions it offers through its correct application in society.

In conclusion, the above issues collectively demonstrate the colossal nature of the task awaiting the incoming Government of Nawaz Sharif. The worrying fact is that these are not exhaustive – we have not even touched upon to the uprising of separatist factions in Baluchistan, the heightened sectarian tension between Shia’s and Sunni’s, or even Pakistan’s long-standing turbulent relationship with neighbouring India. Hence the Premier will have to prioritise and work his way through the rubble of challenges. Tough choices will have to be made with integrity and consideration for the need of the nation. With the media scrutinising his every move, and Imran Khan breathing down his neck as the main opposition waiting to take his seat, Nawaz Sharif can be sure of no respite over the course of his term. As the chosen leader of the second largest Muslim nation globally,15 our collective prayer should be for him to have success in what he has been entrusted with.